The GLIDE Ethos

GLIDE - What it’s about…

GLIDE is an employee owned company that represents all the shareholder members who work in its partner companies. The letters of GLIDE are an acronym of: Growth Led Innovation Driven Employee Company Limited.

This definition embodies the main attributes of the people who work in our company. Any shareholder in any investee company is automatically a member of GLIDE. Irrespective of how many shares a member has, it is one member, one vote, on GLIDE matters.

The GLIDE Ethos

As shareholders, each one of us has a vested interest in contributing to the process of driving through growth and promoting innovation in all areas of the business. Everyone has the right to express their opinions in a responsible and constructive manner. Likewise, we all have a duty to listen to and explore the validity of those opinions.

“We aspire to work in a challenging, innovative world class business infused with fairness, respect, learning and fun.”

The beginnings of GLIDE…

In the summer of 2011, GLIDE was formed. All shareholders are members of GLIDE which is a private company limited by guarantee. This means that it has been set up, for example, on the same basis as a sports club, where the individual shareholder’s liability is limited to £1.

Since the mid 1990’s, Hugh Facey, the founder and executive company chairman of Gripple Limited and Loadhog Limited, has been examining ways to pass on his legacy to subsequent generations of employees. In establishing GLIDE, many considerations had to be taken into account, not least the culture and how to instil our inherent values into everyone that works in the company both now and in the future. Promoting new product development and experimentation in new processes represent key elements of the innovation process.

Hugh Facey, and subsequently Roger Hall, vice chairman of Gripple Ltd and Loadhog Ltd, have both decided to make a gift donation of their personal shares to GLIDE. Their respective donations will be gifted annually over a ten year period, ceasing in 2021. These shares become known as ‘permanent shares’ and can never be sold. They will, over time, generate significant revenue from dividends for GLIDE.

Why was GLIDE established?

To harness our unique culture and pass it on to future generations

To act as custodian / protector of its gifted share dowry from Hugh Facey and Roger Hall, and to ensure they are never sold

To act as market maker in the buying and selling of members’ shares

To exercise its right to use the Golden Share, (explained in a following section), in order to prevent the break-up of companies for the sole purpose of profit

To establish an employee elected board of directors to represent its members

To charge the board with the responsibility of determining the best way to distribute dividend income from the gifted shares on behalf of their members

GLIDE has been established to preserve and develop employee culture; to look after the interests of its members and to generate engagement by everyone in their company. It’s great to feel that everyone is an owner of their business.

Our goals and the Articles of Association

The operation of GLIDE is controlled under a set of guidelines and goals contained in a document known as the Articles of Association. GLIDE is committed to encouraging each investee company to achieve:

An annual growth in turnover of 10%

25% of annual turnover from products which are less than 4 years old; innovation is key to long term prosperity and independence

A contribution of 1% of budgeted profits to charitable causes

The promotion and support of employee ownership to other businesses in the wider economy

In addition, GLIDE has a responsibility to invest any income under its custodianship for the benefit of:

Its investee companies by investing in new products, machines and processes

Its members by investing in sports, social and other leisure facilities

Other businesses in the manufacturing and service sectors, offering unique patented products or value added features

Its members, by considering when appropriate, the social, healthcare and financial hardships affecting any of its members

Charity & Community

Working within the community is far more than a set objective we need to fulfil � it�s simply part of who we are.

As a company formed and based in Sheffield, England, the city is close to our heart, and naturally we want to give something back to our district.

Charity & Community

Each year, we donate a percentage of our profits to charity, with our internal Charities Committee meeting regularly to discuss fundraising events, as well as nominating worthy causes to benefit from future funding. We like to help out wherever we can, focusing our efforts on charities and other causes that are less publicised and therefore often overlooked.

Our passion is best exemplified by our role in the Master Cutler's Challenge. Each year, we participate alongside several other companies from the region to raise money for local causes.

The challenge puts our innovation to the test and brings out the best in us all, inspiring such ideas as a weight loss competition, a luggage-strap enterprise, and a nearly-naked calendar.

Everyone always pitches in, and over the past few years we have raised over �30,000.

To thank us for our efforts, and for embracing the project so readily, we have been overjoyed to receive the Judge's Special Award, the Individual Award, and the Award for Most Money Raised.

To learn more about the charities we have helped recently, take a look at our Fundraising Review of 2012, or our most recent project for Leonard Cheshire.

Fundraising Review of 2011

Master Cutler's Challenge Review 2010

Fundraising Review of 2010

Fundraising Review of 2009

Our Environmental Impact

Ever since the formation of our company, we at Gripple have always appreciated the imporance of sustainability.

Our Environmental Impact

Much like our stringent Quality procedures, we have an Environmental Management System in place certified to ISO 14001, and in 2007 we were the p roud winners of the EEF Environmental Award.

As a manufacturing plant, we recognise our responsibility to reduce our impact on the planet.

Over the last few years, we have managed to maximise our energy efficiency, decrease electricity use, reduce landfill/incinerated waste, increase recycling, conserve our use of raw materials, and minimise our packaging.

We continuously strive to integrate sustainability into our design process, which is epitomised by the resounding fact that a Gripple today uses 30% less zinc than the original design, without compromising its strength or functionality.

You can be confident we've minimised our environmental impact as far as possible during the design and manufacture of our goods, and we believe our products and their applications can play a fundamental part in you achieving your own suitability objectives.